Headache Care.net

New migraine clinical trial guidelines

2012-01-24T20:23:00Z

Experts from the International Headache Society (IHS) have developed new recommendations for conduct of acute and preventive migraine clinical trials. The third edition of Migraine Clinical Trials Guidelines is now available in the IHS journal Cephalalgia, which is published by SAGE.

The new guidelines represent an expert consensus summary, and recommend a contemporary, standardized, and evidence-based approach to investigators conducting and reporting randomised, controlled migraine clinical trials.

Migraine clinical research has increased exponentially since the last set of guidelines was published. Clinical researchers and pharmaceutical companies have accumulated further experience, and the trend is towards large, multi-national and multi-centre studies. Given these developments, it was timely to bring the guidelines up to date.

The IHS stresses that it endorses adherence to the guidelines unless there is scientific justification to deviate from them. They represent research practice parameters and are the highest level in the hierarchy of evidence-based recommendations in the absence of published standards of research practice.

Headaches common in kids months after brain injury

2011-12-08T08:21:01Z

Kids who have a concussion or other traumatic brain injury are more likely to develop headaches for up to a year afterward than children who have had a bodily injury, according to a new study.

While not entirely surprising, the results point to a difficult long-term problem for kids and their parents because adequate treatments are lacking, researchers say.

“It’s an issue because they may have problems with sleep, and the headaches can make it harder to concentrate,” said lead author Dr. Heidi Blume at Seattle Children’s Research Institute.

Migraines may raise depression risk: study

2011-11-25T17:53:00Z

People who get painful migraine headaches may be at a higher risk for developing clinical depression, suggests a new study from Canada.

The research, published in the journal Headache, also hints that the relationship may go both ways, and people with clinical depression could have a higher risk of developing migraines, but that finding could have been due to chance, the researchers say.

Nonetheless, lead author Geeta Modgill, who was at the University of Calgary while conducting the work, told Reuters Health that migraine and depression sufferers should know the signs of both ailments since each might be at a higher risk for the other condition.

Imagined smells can precede migraines - study

2011-10-17T21:43:00Z

Hallucinated scents such as a burning or rotten smell, or even the scent of foie gras, can be a part of the “aura” that some people perceive before a migraine attack, although it is rare, according to a U.S. study.

About 30 percent of people with recurrent migraines have sensory disturbances shortly before their headache hits, known as aura, but these are usually visual, such as flashes of light or blind spots. Tingling sensations or numbness, or difficulty speaking or understanding language, may also appear.

But the study, conducted by Matthew Robbins and colleagues at the Montefiore Headache Center in New York, found that a small number of people described smelling scents in conjunction with their headaches.

Treatment Options for Cluster Headache

2011-09-14T08:52:00Z

Cluster headache has a substantial detrimental effect on quality of life. New invasive procedures, such as hypothalamic deep brain stimulation and bilateral occipital nerve stimulation, may help patients with chronic refractory headache.

This is one of the conclusions reached by Charly Gaul and co-authors from the Department of Neurology at the University Medical Center Essen in the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International.

Cluster headache is the most common trigemino-autonomic headache, affecting some 120,000 people in Germany. Typically, patients suffer unilateral short attacks, which are accompanied by restlessness. The causes of cluster headache are not clear. Men are affected more often than women, with a ratio of 3.5:1.

Europe May Have Less Headaches

2011-09-14T08:50:00Z

In a move that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) turned down earlier this year based on a lack of evidence that it actually works, St. Jude Medical has won European CE regulatory approval for the use of its implanted neurostimulation device for patients with severe chronic migraine headaches. Earlier this summer, the FDA said it wanted to see an even greater rate of migraine improvement for patients in the study using the device compared with those in a control group.

The new European device treats migraines by stimulating nerves at the base of the head with electrical pulses, which seems to block pain signals from reaching the brain, St. Jude said. There are currently few treatments for people who suffer serious recurring migraine headaches.

The therapy for this condition involves delivering mild electrical pulses to the occipital nerves that are located just beneath the skin at the back of the head. A small electrical lead or leads are placed under the skin and are connected to the neurostimulator, which produces the stimulation.

Drug may help ease Ramadan headaches: study

2011-08-25T06:37:00Z

A painkilling, anti-inflammatory drug may help prevent headaches in Muslims fasting from dawn to dusk for Ramadan, according to a study from Israel—where a “Yom Kippur headache” is also known.

About four in every ten people who abstain from food and water all day during the month-long Ramadan period get headaches, said the study, published in the journal Headache. This year, Ramadan began on August 1.

“Religious fasting is associated with headache,” wrote lead researcher Michael Drescher, from Hartford Hospital in Connecticut, the United States, referring to Ramadan and Judaism’s Yom Kippur, when people fast for 25 hours.

The association of alcohol drinking with migraine headache

2011-06-15T01:29:00Z

Migraine is a neurovascular disease that affects about 15% of the western population. Compounds in foods and beverages (chocolate, wine, citrus, etc) considered as migraine triggers include tyramine, phenylethylamine and possibly histamine and phenolic compounds. Avoiding those triggers may significantly reduce the frequency of migraines in some patients.

However, only a small percentage of patients in one study became headache-free simply by excluding those foods, epidemiological studies are pointing out that genetic factors may be an underlying cause. Discrepancies in the way people are reacting to wine intake, and whether or not it triggers migraine, may be potentially explained by genetic polymorphisms in specific enzymes related to metabolism Alcoholic drinks are a migraine trigger in about one third of patients with migraine in retrospective studies on trigger factors. Many population studies show that patients with migraine consume alcohol in a smaller percentage than the general population. Research has shown a decreased prevalence of headache with increasing number of alcohol units consumed. The classification criteria of alcohol-related headaches remain problematic.

An excellent paper from The Headache Center in Empoli, Italy by Panconesi A et al (Curr Pain Headache Rep (2011) )15:177-184 summarizes the scientific data relating to alcohol and migraine headaches. The factors that trigger an attack of migraine, or of other headaches as well, are poorly understood.

A pill to prevent migraine?

2011-06-02T07:50:01Z

The discovery of a gene for migraine holds great promise in the quest for new approaches—possibly even a pill—for preventing the disease, says a panel of experts presenting data at the annual scientific meeting of the American Headache Society. So far, there is no therapy that prevents an attack.

Guy A. Rouleau, MD, whose Canadian and British research team was first to sequence the gene for migraine last fall, says for the first time since the discovery of the triptans in the 1980s, investigators seeking to develop new migraine therapies are excited about the possibility of preventive drugs for migraine. Triptans act by constricting blood vessels in the brain which in turn inhibit pain receptors which can block migraine in some patients. They are e not considered preventative therapies.

“We may be moving toward developing about a pill that would block the brain’s pain channel that reacts to stimulation and causes pain in migraine,” says Dr. Rouleau. ‘Sequencing the gene not only allows us to understand the disease – it also opens understanding of the pain pathways that trigger migraine pain.” Dr. Rouleau is director of the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center and Full Professor in the Department of Medicine of the Université de Montréal

Precision-tinted lenses offer real migraine relief, reveals new study

2011-05-27T07:13:01Z

For the first time, researchers have shown why precision-tinted lenses reduce headaches for migraine sufferers, a finding that could help improve treatment options for patients battling the debilitating ailment.

Jie Huang of Michigan State University’s Department of Radiology used functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, to reveal how precision-tinted lenses normalize brain activity in patients with migraine headaches, preventing such attacks.

Huang’s research appears in the current edition of the journal Cephalalgia, published by SAGE.

While tinted lenses are increasingly used for migraine sufferers, until now the science behind the effects was unclear. The team led by Huang showed how colored glasses - tuned specifically to each migraine sufferer - work by normalizing the activity in the brain’s visual cortex, which is responsible for processing visual information and is located in the back of the brain.

Botox injected in head ‘trigger point’ is proven to reduce migraine crises

2011-05-12T06:40:00Z

Scientists at the University of Granada have confirmed that injecting a local anesthetic or botulinum toxin (botox) into certain points named “trigger points” of the pericraneal and neck muscles reduce migraine frequency among migraine sufferers. University of Granada researchers have identified the location of these trigger points -which activation results in migraine– and their relationship with the duration and severity of this condition.

Headache is a universal experience. At present, there are more than 100 different types of headache and one of the most recurring ones is migraine, which affects approximately 10-12% of the population, being three times more common in women than in men. When migraine becomes chronic –occurring more than 15 days a month-, it can disrupt patients’ daily life in a great degree.

This research study is one of the three studies that have been conducted by Juan Miguel García Leiva -a researcher at the University of Granada Institute for Neuroscience “Federico Oloriz” - and coordinated by professor Elena Pita Calandre.

WHO report finds headaches have “enormous” costs

2011-05-04T07:11:00Z

Almost half of all adults worldwide suffer from headache disorders such as migraines and tension headaches and the problem has huge economic and societal costs, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.

Yet headaches are widely under-recognized, under-diagnosed and under-treated, and the scant knowledge about them and the burdens they impose must be improved, the WHO said.

Publishing its first global atlas on headaches, the Geneva-based United Nations health body said it found that 47 percent of all adults have a headache disorder and “the financial costs to society through lost productivity are enormous.”

Book Offers Physical, Spiritual Help to Migraine Sufferers

2011-04-20T06:31:01Z

For the millions of migraine sufferers, the advice is familiar: “Reduce stress.”

“Sounds simple, but it’s a tall order – and rarely do we address what our stress really is,” says Marian Wolbers, instructor of English at Albright College and author of the book, “Migraine: Pain of the Body, Cry of the Spirit.” “Stress for migraine sufferer is really a strain against your essence. That is, anything which is pressed hard against what is most important to your life’s purpose.”

Wolbers suffered from debilitating migraines for 20 years, including cycles when the headaches would strike daily for months at a time. After a stint in the hospital for the disease, she resolved to make changes in her life. “I was very careful with my diet and took only as much work as I felt I could handle safely,” she says. “Still, I got the headaches.”

Study suggests a relationship between migraine headaches in children and a common heart defect

2011-04-01T06:29:01Z

Roughly 15% of children suffer from migraines, and approximately one-third of these affected children have migraines with aura, a collection of symptoms that can include weakness, blind spots, and even hallucinations. Although the causes of migraines are unclear, a new study soon to be published in The Journal of Pediatrics suggests a connection between migraine headaches in children and a heart defect called patent foramen ovale, which affects 25% of people in the U.S.

Dr. Rachel McCandless and colleagues from the Primary Children’s Medical Center and the University of Utah studied children 6-18 years old who were diagnosed with migraines between 2008 and 2009. The 109 children enrolled in the study were treated at the Primary Children’s Medical Center, which serves kids from Utah, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Colorado, and parts of Wyoming.

The researchers took two-dimensional echocardiograms of each child’s heart, looking for a patent foramen ovale (PFO), a common defect in the wall between the two upper chambers of the heart. Although a PFO is not necessarily dangerous, it can allow unfiltered blood to bypass the lungs and circulate throughout the body. As Dr. McCandless explains, “Some adult studies have suggested a link between having a PFO and migraine headaches.”

Migraines: Top 5 Drugs That Work

2011-02-11T03:54:00Z

There are several drugs available for treating migraines, however, only some of the specific migraine drugs have been approved by US FDA. Amongst these drugs are both non-prescription and prescription migraine drugs. Most migraine drugs that are available approved only for treatment and use in adults.
The top five drugs that work for migraine attacks are:

1. Pain Relievers: Over-the-counter painkillers are the most important part of migraine treatment. These are also referred to as analgesics. Some of the examples include Ibuprofen, common brand names being Advil and Motrin; Naproxen, common brand name Aleve. Another commonly used migraine drug in this category is Acetaminophen (Tylenol).

One of the acetaminophen containing brands that has been approved by the FDA is Excedrin. Some of the prescription drugs in this category include brands of diclofenac.